Six Days in June by Eric Hammel How Israel Won the 1967 Arab-Israeli War

Distinguished military historian Eric Hammel becomes the first chronicler of the 1967 Six
Day War to unite the story of development of Israel’s bold brand of military training and
planning with a detailed narrative account of her breathtaking victories in Sinai,
Jerusalem, The West Bank, and the Golan Heights. Unlike all earlier accounts of the 1967
war, Hammel’s sweeping narrative describes how, from the early 1950s, the Israel
Defense Force—Zahal—undertook a relent-less and often visionary campaign to prepare
for the inevitable war of national survival that, when it came, radically altered the Middle
East and has profoundly influenced international politics ever since.

Israel’s brilliant, innovative military think-ers developed extremely flexible strategies, operational plans, and battlefield tactics aimed at overcoming several large Arab forces
with Zahal’s much smaller army and air force. Zahal’s innovations proved to be so
effective and fundamentally sound that they established the norms of modem military
planning and performance.

Hammel decisively disproves the endur-ing myth that Israel’s stunning 1967 victory was a
“miracle” or a “fluke.” He explains how, by necessity and in secret, a tiny Third-World
nation developed a First-World military force that has become the envy of all the nations
of the world.

Hammel is at his proven best when describing the actions of men at war. Six Days in June
seamlessly meshes classic military history with the human drama of Israel’s finest hour.

Eric Hammel is the author of more than thirty-five highly acclaimed books on military
affairs, including Chosin: Heroic Ordeal of the Korean War; Ace: A Marine Night Fighter
Pilot in World War II; The Root: The Marines in Beirut; and Duel for the Golan: The
100-Hour Battle that Saved Israel.

Eric Hammel is a critically acclaimed military historian and author of more than thirty combat and pictorial histories, including several on U.S. Marine operations in World War II and Vietnam, such as Pacific Warriors: The U.S. Marines in World War II, Iwo Jima: Portrait of a Battle, and Marines in Hue City: A Portrait of Urban Combat, Tet 1968. He lives in Northern California.